Boston Public Library

Hey. Come here. I wanna tell you a story. At the Holy Name/Catholic Memorial dances I attended in my youth I never "grinded" with any boys. After one of the HN/CM dances I did find $211 on the ground when I went to buy some gum at White Hen Pantry. Westie continues its tradition of giving with this all-ages poetry contest courtesy of Friends of the West Roxbury Branch Library.

Once upon a time you could enter the first floor of Boston’s Copley Square public library and escape having to listen to the self-promotional chatter of corporate-sponsored or underwritten radio show hosts and their Establishment or celebrity guests, while you read a book or sat in front of your laptop. Yet nowadays, the two former longtime WTKK-FM commercial radio talk show hosts that the WGBH Educational foundation hired in 2013 to co-host its “Boston Public Radio” daily morning show, Margery Eagan and Jim Braude, are also broadcasting their 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library (BPL) is hosting an exhibition, "We Are One, Mapping America's road from revolution to independence" to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the colonial resistance to the British Stamp Act.

This week, four new maps from the King George III Topographical Collection and other collections at the British Library were added to the exhibition. These maps are "one-of-a-kind", watercolor paintings in a beautiful 18th-century style. Read more.

CommonWealth magazine came across an interesting lawsuit involving the Boston Public Library and Maryanne Lewis, a lawyer-lobbyist and former state representative who is considering a run as an independent for Congress. The BPL says Lewis was improperly awarded a secret consulting contract by its former president, Bernard Margolis, and that Lewis never performed any consulting or legal services. Lewis says she did the "government relations consulting services" she was hired to do and wants the $32,000 she is still owed on her contract. The BPL is not only refusing to pay but demanding the $46,000 Lewis has already pocketed.

As Boston considers the closing of libraries in the midst of a recession, it may be useful to remind ourselves of the broader contributions of libraries to our neighborhoods:

Former American Librarian Association president Sarah Long

When I was president of the American Library Association in 1999-2000, I chose, "Libraries Build Community" as my theme because I felt strongly that the library always serves a special place in the community. It's not only a place to find information and knowledgeable librarians, it's also a place to be with other community members. Think of the library as a community's living room. . . . I chose, "Libraries Build Community" as my presidential theme because the library is the community's information hub and a place to gather, but also because of what happens inside libraries. Children come to story hour and adults come to programs. Library meeting rooms are places to vote or are used for local legislators' town hall meetings. In the information age, the library is so much more than a collection of books.

I am not interested in arguing the list. I have a pretty good feeling that my library can beat these other libraries. But that's what the cutters want, they want to pit us one neighborhood against the other. I imagine the West End library is still there because modernizers of the past, in an effort to bring the West End into the 20th century, flattened the neighborhood in the name of progress, dense urban living and a major road interchange. But instead of a modern neighborhood, the West End became an infamous name, and a symbol of everything that went wrong in urban renewal.

The credits have rolled for the Centre Street Blockbuster - although there's now a cheery note on the front door advising former customers to put their old movies through the slot if they don't want to hear from a collection agency.

In other Centre Street news, it's a bit of a shame the West Roxbury BPL branch couldn't have opened before cool weather after some recent renovations - because the first thing that hits you now when you enter is the smell of paint, and not in a good way.

Many people haven't yet used interlibrary loan readily available at our branch public libraries for books, audio and video not on the shelves within the immediate Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville and other Massachusetts' libraries systems.

Better software is being developed for tracking what titles library users/customers/consumers ask for.

Alternately new book suggestions, audio suggestions and video suggestions can be submitted for local branch libraries' collections.

Hints, tips and pointers for more effective use of interlibrary loan...

Many people haven't yet used interlibrary loan readily available at our branch public libraries for books, audio and video not on the shelves within the immediate Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville and other Massachusetts' libraries systems.

Better software is being developed for tracking what titles library users/customers/consumers ask for.

Alternately new book suggestions, audio suggestions and video suggestions can be submitted for local branch libraries' collections.

Hints, tips and pointers for more effective use of interlibrary loan...

Problematical library use.
Please arrange it so that permanent URLs for entries in the BPL catalog at http://bpl.org
can be referred to for letting other library users/customers/consumers
know about a book's catalog entry.

Apparently the catalog is not setup properly for convenient
referring to an entry by a permanent URL.

Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections.

[ photo by Robert Spencer ]
Bernard Margolis, president of The Boston Public Library.

The research libraries, including a large consortium in the Boston area, are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort aimed at making their materials broadly available.

For Bernard Margolis the predicament of the lib is also an opportunity to go on to a better more inspired library environment. We can only hope Massachusetts can find a way to keep this creative talented skilled BPL President.

The kind of leadership City of Boston officials get are are of lesser creativity, talent and skill who can go along with this wrongheaded machine of municipal government.